Franklin Cudjoe, President of IMANI Africa, has strongly criticized the Electoral Commission (EC) for attributing the recent District Assembly election lapses to mere “technical challenges.”
He argued that the explanation is disingenuous and highlights underlying issues with the Commission’s planning and transparency.
Mr Cudjoe emphasized that the EC’s assurances of preparedness weeks before the election contradict their claims of last-minute technical difficulties.
“This whole conversation about technical issues for the lapse the EC had cannot be true. You see if they are saying that maybe someone’s name was misspelled or something on the ballot, maybe yes. You can’t tell me that 12 hours or 6 hours to the elections, you didn’t know that you didn’t have all the accoutrement.
“These are not technical issues, they are just blatant disregard for the processes, it should have been ready two weeks earlier”.
Cudjoe further criticizes the EC for its “headstrong” approach and lack of collaboration with stakeholders. He believes excluding voices from different parties contributes to avoidable problems, as evidenced by the recent elections.
“The EC has been very headstrong…If they had internalized some of these issues, I don’t know why they would then wake up and tell us recently that in the main 2024 polls, they will close polls at 3 pm. What kind of signs went into that type of decision?
Speaking on the Big Issue, Mr Cudjoe added “Well, if you are going to have an election and this District level election is an example of some of the processes that were bungled, would you think that 3 pm should applied to every polling station? Would you want to do something like that”? he added.
